[Matsuzaka] is scheduled to long toss on Wednesday and throw in the bullpen again on Friday ...

Over at SoSH, posters are looking at other pitchers' recovery from TJ - Edinson Volquez, Jordan Zimmerman, and Stephen Strasburg being the last three starters to have the surgery before Dice - and attempting to get a rough estimate of when Dice might return to the rotation. Looking at the rehab schedule of those three "yields a potential return date range of between May 23 and June 16".

Perhaps Ben Cherington is in no rush to panic and sign either Roy Oswalt or Edwin Jackson to a deal he'll soon regret because he believes the Red Sox can get through the first two months of the season, filling the #5 spot with a variety of arms, trial and error to see who can help during the dog days, and then welcome a (hopefully) well-tuned Matsuzaka back into the fold in June. Anything close to Dice's combined 2007-08 stats (126 ERA+) would be a godsend

You can't throw out people like Andrew Miller,etc, in April and May, counting on Dice K's return. I will use the tired cliche,early wins are just as important as September's.Another, you can never have enough pitching. If you can get Jackson on a one year deal, do it.

fwiw, it's Dice-K's walk year, too. I'm quietly hoping for the best, which for him would be a healthy arm and finding his WBC attitude of arrogance towards hitters. He was a different pitcher in both those tournaments.